How does Infra work?

￼No global shared ledger. Everybody has its own. Shared ledgers are created when needed between parties that trade together. Ledgers can be made private or public or shared only between certain entities.

No designated miners or validators. Banks and financial institutions that register users validate transactions for them. Regulators may be involved in the validation process.

No global consensus. It is reached only between parties involved into ongoing transaction or trade. Many types of consensus mechanisms are possible depending on requirements for different groups of entities. Each group of entities effectively becomes a decentralized exchange with a shared ledger.

No built-in coin. All digital assets are backed by financial institutions. Users share their ledgers with entities they are registered. Assets can be stored in different ledgers and accessed by unique identifiers.

No global identity provider. KYC is done by financial institutions, identities are stored in a federated way by them. Requests and responses to identity databases are signed. It effectively becomes web of trust.

Transactions are signed by all involved parties one after another. It is considered final when all needed signatures are present. Signatures are legally binding and all parties are identified. Balances are adjusted in each ledger asynchronously.

No global network. P2P connections are established ad-hoc and based on trust in real world between entities like banks, clearing houses, merchants. There is no need to change existing trust relationships. Infra is just a protocol to send transactions, agree on balances and decentralized trading.

FAQ

How double spending is prevented?

Since protocol of communication between financial entities is uniform and open, there will be much easier to establish financial relations. Cryptography and blockchain technology allow to speed up transaction settlement, improve transparency and audibility. Decentralized trade and currency exchange become possible.

What level of trust is required?

Even though everybody is able to set-up a gateway and issue digital assets, it is up to the users to trust the issuer. The same level of trust is required when banks issue electronic version of money for their customers. For other use cases (like complementary currencies) it is completely up to the user to trust whether its issuer is reliable. Gateways may establish trust between each other to allow their users to trade and send their assets between networks.

Why it is better than existing financial system?

Since protocol of communication between financial entities is uniform and open there will be much easier to establish financial relations. Cryptography and blockchain technology allows to speed up transaction settlement, improve transparency and audibility. Decentralized trade and currency exchange becomes possible.